Drug-induced sarcoidosis: an overview of the WHO pharmacovigilance database

There is a documented association between drug exposure and sarcoidosis-like reactions. In this study, we used the largest pharmacovigilance database to describe drug-induced sarcoidosis.

Data were collected from the World Health Organization (WHO) pharmacovigilance database (VigiBase). We excluded steroids and vaccines from the analysis. The primary end-point was the lower end-point of the 95% credibility interval for the information component (IC₀₂₅ ).

A total of 127 reports had significant IC₀₂₅ values for drug-induced sarcoidosis, and 110 were included in the final analysis, accounting for 2425 adverse drug reactions. Overall, 2074 (85.5%) reactions were considered 'serious' and 86 (3.5%) were fatal. Most of the drugs that led to sarcoidosis adverse reactions were TNF-alpha antagonists, interferon or peg-interferon therapeutics, and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Other biologic drugs were less frequently associated with sarcoidosis adverse events. Cancer-targeted therapies such as BRAF or MEK inhibitors were associated with sarcoidosis reactions in 37 cases. Pulmonary hypertension drugs were also reported for drug-induced sarcoidosis. Amongst the 55 drugs considered as potential sarcoidosis inducers, 25 (45.4%) were never reported in Medline as drug-induced sarcoidosis.

We provide a detailed list of suspected drugs associated with drug-induced sarcoidosis that will improve the recognition of this drug-induced adverse event.